WoodClan

New year, no smoking again

So it's now 2010, it has been a year since I joined Hearst Digital, the time has flown and a lot of change has happened in the last year.

I've have survived three managers, a redundancy and moved offices. With my team, built Huxley, a CMS that uses Gearman, R3 (Yahoo! templating system based on Rosetta), Perl backend and PHP frontend, MySQL Database, that runs on the cloud. It is also cheap as chips to run. The sites running on it as of today: Diet Diaries , 30 Days and Mens Health Lucozade 

At home we now have Charlotte with us as well as Oskar and Tomas. She is 8 weeks old now and has grown into a cute little girl already; the worrying thing for me is that I get excited about cute pink outfits now.

For the last 3 years I have tried to give up smoking, in fact it has become a bit of a family tradition for me to give up at new year, this year is no different, I am currently smoke free and  a bit grumpy, but on the plus side I'm up by £6.20 in savings already. At this rate I'll be able to afford all the shoes, clothes and other random "must haves" that Oskar, Tomas and Charlotte all need.

It is Oskar's first day at "big" school on Tuesday 5th Jan, this meant that we needed to go school uniform shopping. Oskar and I went to Staines to get shoes, Trousers, Shirts and Plimsolls. We came back home with black trousers - should be grey, long sleeve shirts - should be short sleeve and totally lacking in shoes. Bad trip all in all, but Linda and Oskar went and sorted it all out, exchanging the items I got wrong with the words "I shouldn't have sent my husband..."

Well, it's Tom and Jerry day on Boomerang today, so should get on and try to find some peace and quiet away from the bang and crashes of the cat and mouse. The thing that is both a relief and an annoyance is that they are showing old Tom and Jerry cartoons, which have not be airbrushed by the health Nazi's and they both still smoke. This now annoys me as I fancy a smoke at the moment!

• Day: 1
• Number of ciggies: 0
• Grumpy factor: 8
• Snapped at boys: 2
• Savings on ciggies: £6.20

 

End of an Era

Well it's the 31st December 2008, 2009 is only a few hours away and it's all change in the Wood household.

Today is officially my last day at Yahoo! a company I have worked for since the beginning of 2000. Admittedly Ihave been on holiday since the 12 December, bu it didn't really hit me that I was leaving until I got my final pay slip and P45 though.

In the 8 years and 10 months I have worked for Yahoo! I have seen the boom and bust of the Internet, launched numerous products across Yahoo! Europe and have closed down a fair few as well. I have played snooker with Filo and Zod in the wee hours while a little bit worse for drink (they won). Gone to Grenoble, Milan, Munich, Madrid, Paris, Ibiza and Teneriffe - all on business i might add, although some times it was a little more than the odd meeting. 

I'm going to miss Yahoo! I have enjoyed the large part of my life I spent there, I joined as one of the youngest engineers in Europe and left as one of the oldest and longest serving. When I joined I was young, free and single. I am now married with two little boys and no longer free, just quite cheap ;-)

I've grown up and so has Yahoo! It's time for me to leave and continue my journey, I will watch Yahoo! continue to grow as I do, and I wish all my friends i've left behind all the best for 2009 and that I will see them for a pint very soon.

As for tonight and the year to come, Oskar has Chicken Pox (got his first spot yesterday) - we are hoping that Tomas gets them soon!  and I start my new role as Head of Technology for Hearst Digital on the 5th January. It's all change here, but nothing lasts forever and change is good.

All the best for 2009.

Recovering from the holiday [Part 1]

The story of our holiday to the South of France. Taken from emails to the family.

After 35 hours, 1 hotel, 2 supermarkets and 1 breakdown 300km from argeles we are now here (Argeles Plage, near Perpignan).

[July 28]
We left Sunningdale at 10am and got on the EuroTunnel at 2pm, with the time difference we left the Terminal at 4pm. We then Drove to just outside Rouen where we stopped for dinner. After a couple hours we left and the boys promptly fell asleep, it also started to rain. At midnight  we were at Bouges and decided to stop.

[July 29]
At 9am and a nice sleep, we left and drove for about 3 hours and the battery light came on while Oskar was having a paddy, so we stopped at the nearest airre.

It turned out after opening the bonnet that the engine was not really in working order to say the least. Even with my limited knowledge of car mechanics, power steering liquid pouring over everything and a shaft thingy hanging off and a belt haning lose is not a normal working. After phoning the AA, we had to call the police to get a tow truck.

We got to a garage about 30 mins from Millau. After looking at the car, speaking to the AA and confirming it would take longer than 8 hours the AA agreed to get us a hire car. At 4:30 we were picked up and at 5:30 we left Millau car hire. We arrived at the van at 20:50. The boys are up and having fun, we are drinking and all is at peace with the world!

I sure am glad of two things one that we got AA cover and two that we got the car serviced last monday to avoid this sort of thing happening!

Total pre-emptive spend on holiday

AA Cover: £69 for 15 days

Total cost for all that the AA Provided:

• Cost of Car Hire (4 days)
  
• 2 taxi rides (Marvejols to Millau and Millau to Marvejols - 140km total distance)
• Cost of recovery from Motorway Airre

All of above: £750 approx

Money well spent I say!

A great day out for boys of all ages

Waiting for the off...
Originally uploaded by jaywood_uk

Three generations of Wood's went on Sunday to Great Cockcrow Railway in Chertsey, Surrey.

Oskar loves trains and anything mechanical really, so on Sunday we went to have a look at the miniature railway and have a couple of journeys. GCR was originally established at Greywood House in Walton-on-Thames in 1946. In 1968 they re-opened in Hardwick Lane, Chertsey.

Compared to other days/afternoons out, it is cheap as chips. £4.50 for a double journey for adults and £4 for kids. This gives you two journeys on different routes (red & green) and it takes about an hour and a half.

Some photos of the day can be found here: Great Cockcrow Railway

For any kids old and young I can recommend it! I bought Oskar a DVD about Cockcrow which cost £12.50 (more than I would normally pay, even for a Hollywood film, but then again I am a cheapskate) which he has already watched 6 or 7 times. Linda I'm sure is getting bored with it already!

The Budget Darling?

The UK had the annual budget announced yesterday, where all British families find out how they are going to be out of pocket for the year(s) to come.

This year it was not Gordon Brown (now PM) but the new Chancellor's - Alistair Darling - turn to put it to the population. In general as a middle class family we are looking to have our needs totally ignored by the government and this year was no different.

So the highlights:

• Cigarettes up by 11p per 20. - fair enough, if you smoke you know you are going to get hit for "health reasons"
• Beer up by 4p per pint and wine up by 14p per bottle - again apparently for "health reasons" and to combat binge drinking.
• Car tax will be up to £950 for the highest polluting cars - This is the "green tax"
• Pensioners will get a one off increase on the Winter Fuel Allowance this year.
• Schools to get £200 million for improving GCSE results and £30 million to improve science teaching.

So - nothing what so ever to help my family and myself, nothing to help the middle class and the family. We are only the future of the country Darling! Pensioners get a one off increase in the winter fuel allowance - well good for them, but I'm getting taxed back into the stone age and have to provide for my 2 children and wife. She doesn't work, she looks after our children, so we need all the breaks we can get - how about sending that money over our way.

Most people will assume Chelsea Tractors are the only ones affected by the new bands in car tax and for that matter the new congestion charge in London, but it will also affect people like me who need a people carrier to ferry the kids and associated "stuff" to places we are going. Now before some lefty, vegetarian, anti car nut says "use public transport" - 2 things:

1. I live outside London, where the bus service is twice a day and going in the wrong direction.
2. The cost of train fares are stupid, and they also go in the wrong direction if we want to see family.

So no support for middle england once again- What have I got personally from this Budget? Well I'll be worse off, looks like I'll have to get them working down the mines... Hang on the UK doesn't have any mines!

Thanks Darling...